


Tiny Praise

by Hotalando



Series: Core [17]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Bonding, Childhood Memories, Gen, Nightmares, nakamship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:47:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23861812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hotalando/pseuds/Hotalando
Summary: Robin loves history. Research, analysing, thinking about events hundreds of years ago and solving their mysteries. Robin likes the past. But Robin dislikes remembering.
Relationships: Mugiwara Kaizoku | Strawhat Pirates & Nico Robin
Series: Core [17]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/870876
Kudos: 17
Collections: Women! Wanted Zine: Flash Fics





	Tiny Praise

**Author's Note:**

> As part of the flash fiction drabble challenge we are hosting on our Women! Wanted Zine server, the keyword was ’praise’. I usually don't add pre-timeskip stories to _Core_ but I have no clue where else to put it. Enjoy!

Robin loves history. Research, analysing, thinking about events hundreds of years ago and solving their mysteries. Robin likes the past. But Robin dislikes remembering. 

It’s been some while since she has joined the Mugiwara Pirates—for reasons that seem even unclearer now the farther they are drifting away from Alabasta. Despite their initial and partially still existing distrust, everyone is nice to her, respectful and even friendly. As proof she tends to watch the young doctor‘s reactions towards her thoroughly, they seem to be a good measure for the mood on board. He has warmed up to her in the last few days, however his ears are still sensitive to the swordsman‘s verbal exclamation of disapproval over her presence in the crew. 

She doesn‘t defend herself—the captain has accepted her in, after all, she has a right to be here. It‘s never a big issue, never a conflict. Usually the grumpy swordsman‘s abhorrence of her remains unsaid—aware that his captain doesn‘t want to hear them at all—but she feels them, she sees them in his eyes and she knows he‘s whispering them to the other crew mates, at night, behind the captain‘s back. Behind her back. 

But her ears absorb everything. 

In those nights she dares to sleep, the splashing of the waves mixes with the hushed voices she doesn‘t hear but understands. Their irritation over her appearance, their displeasure at her very existence. What does she want? she‘s not one of us! an awful demon she is! she will kill us all one night, she reads from the sharpshooter‘s lips when her eyes are closed. She‘s a skilled lip reader, at day and at night. All of them are talking about her, all these evil and ugly things that she _indeed is_.

She has read them on so many lips. They‘re all the same, their meaning is all the same, the pain is all the same. It never fades away. Staying with her until the spirits of the world decide to let her go. Until she can fade away herself. Perish, finally. 

A loud bang jolts her awake, she feels two hours of nightmares spearing through her skull. On some days, it’s hard to wake up, to look into their eyes when everything Robin sees is the despise on their lips. Still, she rises up to enter the galley from Nami’s room—the usual smile masking her face. Ready for the same old cautiousness around her _crew mates_ but the scene in front her is distracting.

The cook is again reproving the captain and the sharpshooter, a mess of dishes piling up behind him. Yelling fills the room clashing against indifference, and memories in her head, of being an ungrateful child. She’s still sensitive from her nightmares, and barely hears the doctor’s warm words directed at her, “I’m glad someone else is as tidy as me.”


End file.
